scammers

The Nigerian scammers, whatever they’re up to, have missed me, but everyone else has had a crack.

I love the letter with a zack/sixpence/five cent piece attached. The letter instructs me to send a zack, or is five dollars, I forget, to ten other people and within weeks money will rain down upon me. I never part with a zack, so figure I am probably five cents to the good.

My then 86 year-old father won second prize, $110k, in a Malaysian mystery raffle. This scam comes with bogus website and pretty girls—they sound pretty on the phone—to give your bank details to. He thinks email, a website and phone number is rather convincing. I do a web search for him and uncover scores of other second prize winners all for the same amount, $110k.

I’m hooked for a while by the Windows technician who rings to walk “people in your area” through a Windows glitch backstage in my computer. Highly plausible before informing me that my operating system is no longer under warranty. I can purchase an extension from him and he’ll debug me. Goes ape-shit when I decline his kind offer.

Last night I get a text message offer for my car, advertised on carsales.dot.com.

i will like to by your car listed for sale, pls get back to me now with the lowest price and condition on my email address: ryanrobb1407@yahoo.com  

Well Shazam! Is it phoney or some dumb Subcontinental—you can hear the written accent—who’d buy a car sight unseen? I email a civil reply at 1.17am, expecting an instant formulaic reply. At 4:08am:  

ok no problem i will be paying you $11,500 with my PayPal account because it's attached to my bank account and its safe and very secure way to make payment. If my mode of payment is accepted just send me your paypal email address or send me paypal payment request so i can pay in right away. Make sure you get back to me so that i can make the payment. I have a private courier agent that will handle the shipping after payments has been made, so no shipping included. OR better still you can just send me your bank account details and the payment will be made into your bank account asap. And if you dont have a paypal account, you can easily go to www.paypal.com and sign up. its very easy. i will call you later I await your reply asap.

Due to the nature of my job and my location i will not be able to come for inspection am a very busy type as i work long hours everyday,i don't really think i need to come for a look, because i have gone through your advertisement and i am satisfied with it so i will call you when  am chanced from work but as of now we can be chatting online or sending emails.

So preposterous. I’d laugh if not desperate to sell the car. And knowing that scammers wouldn’t be doing this if some people weren’t sucked in. What a world.

Rock on.